Provinciale Statenverkiezingen 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 900 Dutch political advertisers during the 2023 Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial elections) to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (February 24th - March 2nd 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (February 1st - March 2nd 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €169,849 and ran 2642 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

SP

8


1. SP (€38,506)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€3,482)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€232)

261

€42,748

PvdA

22


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€18,854)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€4,895)
3. PvdA Limburg (€2,345)

267

€32,765

GroenLinks

6


1. GroenLinks (€25,427)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€629)
3. GroenLinks Limburg (€174)

79

€26,530

VVD

24


1. VVD (€5,651)
2. VVD Flevoland (€2,284)
3. Limburgse VVD (€983)

301

€12,354

Volt Nederland

1


1. Volt Nederland (€11,882)

408

€11,882

FvD

3


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€9,496)
2. Wybren van Haga (€519)
3. Forum voor Democratie Zeeland (€100)

17

€10,115

CDA

13


1. CDA (€5,372)
2. CDA Noord-Holland (€795)
3. CDA Zeeland (€468)

137

€7,775

PVV

6


1. Geert Wilders (€4,109)
2. PVV Fryslan (€196)
3. PVV Enschede (€196)

32

€4,849

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€3,673)

261

€3,673

ChristenUnie

8


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,026)
2. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€668)
3. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€443)

109

€2,777

PvdD

9


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€755)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€631)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€480)

147

€2,752

DENK

2


1. DENK (€2,272)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€255)

364

€2,527

BVNL

1


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€2,370)

37

€2,370

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€1,491)
2. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€533)
3. 50PLUSFlevoland (€238)

54

€2,366

D66

6


1. D66 (€1,154)
2. D66 Overijssel (€181)
3. D66 Woerden (€100)

108

€1,735

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,292)
2. Alliantie (€100)

17

€1,392

SGP

4


1. SGP provincie Gelderland (€636)
2. SGP (€310)
3. SGP Zeeland (€193)

43

€1,239

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €79,687 and ran 1878 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

GroenLinks

4


1. GroenLinks (€18,360)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€622)
3. GroenLinks Limburg (€154)

60

€19,236

SP

6


1. SP (€12,860)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€1,326)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€121)

99

€14,607

Volt Nederland

1


1. Volt Nederland (€11,363)

408

€11,363

PvdA

16


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€2,490)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€2,194)
3. PvdA Zuid-Holland (€1,801)

152

€9,831

VVD

19


1. VVD (€1,982)
2. VVD Flevoland (€590)
3. Limburgse VVD (€483)

234

€4,955

FvD

2


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€2,447)
2. Wybren van Haga (€481)

9

€2,928

ChristenUnie

8


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€954)
2. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€321)
3. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€318)

90

€2,188

BVNL

1


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€1,998)

35

€1,998

CDA

9


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€795)
2. CDA Zeeland (€313)
3. CDA Flevoland (€221)

111

€1,948

PvdD

9


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€498)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€467)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€279)

115

€1,910

PVV

6


1. Geert Wilders (€1,288)
2. PVV Hengelo (€100)
3. PVV Den Bosch (€100)

22

€1,788

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€1,593)

110

€1,593

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€888)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€179)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€128)

37

€1,295

Alliantie

1


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,282)

13

€1,282

DENK

2


1. DENK (€869)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€236)

298

€1,105

D66

5


1. D66 (€354)
2. D66 Overijssel (€181)
3. D66 Woerden (€100)

44

€835

SGP

4


1. SGP (€310)
2. SGP provincie Gelderland (€222)
3. SGP Zeeland (€193)

41

€825

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

February 1st - March 2nd 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 24th - March 2nd 2023 (Last 7 days)